While Lauder was talking, at least a dozen other people trekked across the dunes to look at the boat.

Sara Zimmerman, a Duck resident, said that she and her husband noticed the mast as they were driving south down Highway 12.

“It’s too much fun,” she said. “You gotta look.”

But Zimmerman quickly added that she did feel bad for the sailor and was glad that no one was injured.

The vessel appeared to be unoccupied, and the sailor had left two notes on it pleading with people.

“NOT
SALVAGE,” he wrote with a pen on the cabin’s exterior wall. “This is my
home. I am trying to get off beach. Please quit stealing stuff I need.
Lines, anchors, boots, food, dinghy, tools, outboard: all gone!”

A similar note was scribbled on a piece of cardboard taped to the deck.

The
deck was in disarray, with little more than strewn ropes, an orange
life jacket and an opened case of bottled water of any obvious value. A
bicycle, however, remained attached to the boat’s mast under the sail.

Lauder’s
husband, James, said that the couple have visited the site just south
of the Bonner Bridge several times over the last two weeks, and talked
with the sailor and another man who have been struggling to save the
boats. “I asked him if he needed anything, and he said we’re
pretty well stocked up with food and water,” James Lauder said. But he
did say he needed an acetylene torch, which Lauder did not have.

The
second sailboat, the Playmate out of Cornwall, N.Y., was severely
damaged and had been intentionally broken into pieces and hauled away
on Friday, said Jay Eddy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law
enforcement officer.

Eddy said that refuge officials have been
working with the sailor to give him the time he needs to get his boats
off the beach, which is within Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, but
the agency is not able to provide the equipment or assist in the
removal.

The saga has unfolded on the Facebook page for
Rodanthe Watersports and Campground, starting with a photograph and a
comment posted on Oct. 20, followed by continuous updates and dozens of
comments, suggestions, offers to help, and some mild criticism of the
sailor’s judgment.

“People have been bringing him food,
clothes, water, and other supplies,” Rodanthe Watersports and
Campground posted on Oct. 29. “I know of a several guys that have put
on their wetsuits and are helping him to repair the boats.

“Yesterday,
while I was there for a few minutes in the morning someone came and
said they would be coming back with fiberglass supplies and a few other
things he could use,” the post continued. “He also told me that a
group of guys came and helped out a couple of days ago. And,
unfortunately, someone came and took an anchor while he was sleeping.”

The
owners of the campground declined to be interviewed, but did not object
to quoting their Facebook page, which identified the sailor as Eric
Brockmyre.

Theresa Lauder described the sailor as a tall, thin, fit-looking man who appeared to be in his mid-50s.

“He was very friendly,” she said.

Reportedly,
the sailor had purchased the vessels after they were damaged in
Hurricane Sandy. He had been sailing about seven miles offshore,
heading to South Carolina to repair the vessels when he fell asleep.
The wind apparently had shifted as he was sleeping and he was awoken
suddenly when both boats bumped bottom.

According to the
Facebook page, the sailor, who had initially slept on his boat, has
been staying on and off with Good Samaritans while he figures out how
to get his remaining boat off the beach.